Hamburg is Chicago’s sister city. For more than 800 years, citizens of Hamburg celebrate their waters, not only locally as a natural environment for leisure and entertainment that involves Hamburgers from child-age on in every nautical activity thinkable, but also as infrastructural veins to oceans and Europe’s continental hinterlands for global trade, logistics and shipment. However, as the meaning and function of Hamburg’s waters is undergoing massive change, the course focuses on existing and new progressions of metropolitan water-architecture and post-industrial port urbanism. We will visit post-industrial port developments such as the docks and airbus industries as well as study phenomena of architectural and urban transformations around waterscapes. Students will get to know this global city through excursions and have the opportunity to explore the wider region with trips to comparable port-cities, such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Berlin. Courses are scheduled during weekdays to allow for easy weekend travels. This program involves direct cultural and academic exchange with students and faculty at Hafen-City University (HCU) in Hamburg. Collaborative workshops will be held along with local NGOs at the Schaltzentrale a former power-plant located at the banks of the river Elbe.

2 COURSES – FOUR WEEKS - 6 ELECTICE CREDITS

ARCH 497-04 Post-Industrial Port Urbanism (3 elective credits)
In groups, students will conduct fieldwork explorations in order to address and objectify various issues and challenges of urban transformation on, around and with Hamburg’s urban water bodies. In particular, the studio will explore urban-landscapes and topographies that perform as flood areas for high- and storm waters and investigate (dis)-connections between water and urban fabric. In short trips the studio will explore the wider region with trips to comparable port-cities, such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Berlin that will introduce means and ways to rethink the role of urban water bodies today: Is water thinkable as public space and resource of urban commonly accessible property? What would new functional and meaningful connections between water and urban landscape be?

ARCH 497-05 Metropolitan Water-Architecture (3 elective credits)
We will visit Hamburg’s port developments such as the docks and airbus industries as well as study phenomena of urban and architectural transformations around waterscapes such as the Hafen-City, which has been Europe’s largest inner-urban transformation site for the past two decades. The course will study historic archetypes around ports and their reuse today. Investigations on various scales aim on studying Hamburg’s multifaceted intertwinement between its waters and new architectural developments. In order to discover new means for living and working on water, we will explore economic, and social-urban functions of water-architecture such as house-boats, water-parks and water-transit, and tour port facilities such Aurubis and Herzog-De Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie.

Subjects of metropolitan water-architecture and post-industrial port urbanism will be documented in a collectively effort through recording, mapping, diagramming with the aim to produce a catalogue for future applications.

HOUSING TYPE: Students will stay in hostels and student housing facilities.

ELIGIBILITY: This program is open to students in all colleges, who are not on academic probation. One social science course and one humanities course are offered, giving students the opportunity to earn “S” and “H” credit towards the Illinois Tech general education requirements. Spaces are limited, so apply early! Preference will be given to students who take 6 credit hours.